That’s right, sports fans, I smell baseball. When I was a kid, sports were seasonal. When the seasons changed, so did the sport. It’s hard for me to relate to sports these days. Football goes all the way into February. God knows when basketball ends (seems like it goes on forever— in the Pros, at least). And baseball ends about when the snow flies. But it always begins in Spring and it’s Spring now. Almost.

It was opening day yesterday— for baseball, in case you’re wondering. Time for the so-called Faithful to breathe in the aroma of Spring and pay homage to overpaid athletes who had better be as good as they can be because that home run that center-fielder just hit cost the club $27,102.56. I don’t know what it is but even the intelligent lay aside any real maturity they gained since the last out of last years World Series. Cubs fans talk of a pennant, Red Sox fans rejoice in the fact that they have yet another chance to win it all and Dodger fans— well, the Dodgers haven’t been the Dodgers since they left Brooklyn, in my opinion. Major League Baseball died for me on the day they announced the move. Walter O’Malley destroyed not just one childhood fantasy of mine— that baseball was a sport— but also what I had always thought the only major league worth caring about— The Pacific Coast League.